Thorpe woodlands are under threat. Racecourse, Belmore and Brown's Plantations are a County Wildlife Site, a superb wildlife habitat and green space for the Norwich area. The present owners of this natural heritage, plan to prosper by building a large housing estate with new roads across it. The purpose of this blog is to inform you about the campaign to save these woodlands and their wildlife.

Photographs of Thorpe woodlands, their varied habitats, plantlife and wildlife all taken by friends and supporters. most taken between 2010 and 2013

Saturday, 13 July 2013

On the 18th of March Broadland District Council launched its 3 month public consultation
on its North-East Norwich Growth Triangle Area Action Plan (we’ll just call it the AAP). The AAP
had 45 questions relating to all aspects of the future development of a large area of mainly rural open
land north-east of Norwich. Over the 12 weeks of the consultation exercise, a total of 3067 responses
were made by members of the public and what councils like to call ‘stakeholders’ (ie: landowners,
developers, organizations with interests in how land is developed, etc). A breakdown of the responses
is interesting:

The 45 questions attracted 3067 responses altogether, of which 2446 were responses directly to
questions 23 and 24, ie: the two Thorpe Woods questions. That’s right, almost four times as many
people responded to the Thorpe Woods questions as to all the other 43 questions put together.
Question 23 was on whether Thorpe Woods should be allocated for some development or retained in
its entirety as it is: 1662 responses were made, of which 1659 were unequivocally against development
and for retention as woodland. The three pro-development responses were from Gail Mayhew,
Socially Conscious Capital, and one member of the public.

Question 24 was on whether a new link road, joining Plumstead Road in the south with Salhouse Road
in the north, should pass through the middle of the wood, or around the wood’s eastern edge. 784
responses were made, of which 99% either supported the eastern route in order to avoid damaging the
woodland, or expressed opposition to any new link road at all.
The other 43 questions attracted 621 responses. Despite very few of the other questions having any
direct relevance to Thorpe Woods, many of the responses were either solely expressing opposition to
the concept of development occurring on Thorpe Woods, or made some mention of such views within
the body of the responses.

Among respondents to questions 23 & 24 were Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Natural England, RSPB, CPRE,
the Norwich Society, Norwich City Council, Norwich Green Party, and a large number of people from
all over the Norwich area as well as Thorpe. There were also a significant number of responses from
further afield in Norfolk, and a few from other parts of the country: there were even a couple from
France!

The consultation’s results have given BDC a very clear impression of public feeling on the questions
they asked, at least where questions relating to Thorpe Woods are concerned. The Mayhews, Mellens
and Meath-Bakers may try to continue ignoring public feeling, but we hope BDC will heed it, and
refuse to give an inch to those who would flatten one of the Norwich area’s most treasured areas of
woodland for their own profit.

Let’s hope that, by July 2014, we can bring the good news that the woods are at last safe.